Eu

Eco-innovative companies could benefit from an advisory service attached to the European Union's InnovFin – EU Finance for Innovators initiative. The advisory service is targeted at large-scale projects that require a minimum of €15 million in research and innovation (R&I) investment, and that...

Two new initiatives, from the European Commission and the Dutch government respectively, aim to eliminate legal barriers that hold up the cross-border trade in raw materials obtained from waste, and illustrate the benefits for the circular economy of cooperation between regulators. This is in line...

Support systems designed to underpin entrepreneurship and innovation are still insufficiently focused on eco-innovation and sustainability, according to the final recommendations of a research project supported by the ECO-INNOVERA Network.
Environmental, social and economic benefits
The SHIFT...

During 2015, the European Commission took a number of initiatives to encourage small and medium-sized companies to see the business opportunities that can arise from greater resource efficiency and green entrepreneurship. The initiatives are grouped under the Commission's Green Action Plan for SMEs...

A European award scheme for innovative social projects shows that social innovation often goes hand in hand with environmental innovation. The European Social Innovation Competition gave out its first awards in 2013, and the scheme is now getting ready to open its fourth edition, with a launch...

The environmental costs arising from the production and use of plastic currently outweigh the plastic industry's global profits, but a “new plastics economy” based on circular principles is possible, according to a new report from the Ellen MacArthur Foundation and the World Economic Forum.
The...

Buildings have a huge environmental footprint. Their construction and use consumes about half of the extracted materials and energy used in the European Union, and is responsible for about a third of EU water consumption. Construction and demolition of buildings also generates about a third of the...

Europe and Korea can learn from one another to bolster eco-innovation, move closer to a circular economy and deliver on the new global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030, concluded decision-makers from both regions at the 19th Forum on Eco-Innovation held in Seoul, the Republic of Korea...

The European Union is rich in skills and yet relatively poor in resources, importing six times more natural resources than it exports. With an expanding global middle class, the competition for resources is likely to impact our economy as well as the world’s environment. To address some of these...

The European Union could be nearly a trillion euros per year better off by 2030 if a current surge of rapidly developing eco-innovations are put into practice within a circular economy framework, according to a study completed for the Ellen MacArthur Foundation.
New technologies and business...